What is something like a hobby or skill that you belive almost anybody should give a try, and what makes your suggestion so good compared to other things?

i feel like this is a descent question i guess.

  • kani@sopuli.xyz
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    1 year ago

    Learning a new language. You learn a bit about how languages work, understand other cultures a bit better, usually learn new vocabulary for your native language, understand the relationship between different languages, learn the roots of loan words and generally helps your brain stay healthy, even by only studying the basics.

      • The_Empty_Tuple@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        Not OP, but I’ve asked myself this as well. I think it depends on where you live and what you want out of your language learning experience. If your goal is to learn something more useful in everyday life and you live in the southern US, Spanish is a great option. If you’re from Canada, French is probably the most useful. German and Mandarin are useful in the business world, but the latter is significantly harder to learn. If you’re not worried about maximizing the utility of what you learn, Norwegian is considered one of the easiest languages for English speakers, and let’s be real, Norway is awesome.

        It’s more important that you stick with whatever you choose though. That’s the part I’ve struggled with.

      • HopeOfTheGunblade@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        Esperanto is reckoned an easy pickup, has speakers globally, and will improve your default in most romance languages. The community is also quite nice, in my experience.

        • randomperson@kbin.social
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          1 year ago

          Esperanto seems to be pretty useless to invest so much time into learning it. Wouldn’t be learning “normal” language more beneficial anyway?

          • HopeOfTheGunblade@kbin.social
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            1 year ago

            Depends on your goals. If you’re going somewhere with one language to spend time, or especially value a particular language, studying that language makes sense. If you want access to a global network of the sort of people who would pick up a conlang intended to be a universal second language, one speakers of can be found anywhere, Esperanto’s your pick.

            Mi lernis Esperanton ĉar mi volas havi amikojn en ĉiaj la landoj de la mondo.

            • randomperson@kbin.social
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              1 year ago

              I am Polish native that can easily read Ukrainian, English and also some German and I have no clue what that sentence means in Esperanto :D. I can only guess that “lernis” is probably something like “learning” and “mondo” refers to “world” (guess based purely on ‘Le Monde’ - French newspaper). Rest looks like some random Lithuanian stuff. I don’t think knowledge of Esperanto could give me any advantage when traveling across Europe. Idea is cool but to be honest English is the new lingua franca and I think that’s good because it’s easy to pick up and already widespread.